Latest from Chicago Critic

Animal Crackers

Besides all excellent tunes and the fine dancing (on Robin Vest’s impressive set), Animal Crackers is indeed one super funny show featuring the amazingly talented Marx Brothers.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

The recording session becomes a battle of wills with Ma Rainey and her agent and the recording engineer. Ma Rainey demands things her way out of respect for her status as a major blues artist and as an independent African-American woman.

The Marvelous Wonderettes

The songs are terrific and enhanced by clever choreography as the four move across the stage in ever-varying configurations. They belt out 50’s and 60’s favorites including such well-known tunes as “It’s My Party,” “Mr. Sandman,” “Lollypop,”

yeast nation (the triumph of life)

For me the use of a pounding hypnotic rock score and the scream-singing was too much. I believe that lyrics and music should work together to enhance and further the story in a manner to be appreciated and understood. Rock music makes that difficult at best.

Year Zero

Having to cope with both their present mourning and their collective past from the mother’s escape form the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in the 1980’s, Ra and Vuthy struggle to find their place in America.

Fake

Playwright Eric Simonson’s fascinating new work, Fake, rekindles the controversy and the impact of the discovery of the infamous “Piltdown Man” thought to be the missing link between ape and man.

Stoop Stories

Her haunting performance contains the truth of living and spilling out your stories on the ‘stoop’ (front steps of an apartment building). Dael deftly mixes poetry and realism into a portrait of Harlem’s forgotten people.

The Hostage

This is a major triumph for Berry and the folks at Griffin Theatre Company! Behan’s play is part Irish melodrama, part music hall musical, part political and cultural satire (of the British and the Irish) and part circus. This is not your sentimental, poetic Irish drama